D2: Women’s bouldering qualifications
The Japanese climbers made a strong impression today. The French girls are just behind. Let’s look back at this first bouldering round, without any big surprise.
In the absence of Shauna Coxsey – injured – the competition seemed pretty open. But the Japanese climbers made a strong impression. Nevertheless, it was only the first round, Coxsey’s successor is not yet designated, and many other talented girls are fighting for the throne.
However, Miho Nonaka and Akiyo Noguchi, looked both confident and relaxed. Hard to figure out how the two Japanese would not be on the podium on Sunday afternoon. None of them showed any hesitations even if Miho Nonaka did not complete her 4th problem. Akiyo Noguchi also needed two attempts in the last one.
The Japanese climbers will meet in semi-final the Austrian Katharina Saurwein and French Clémentine Kaiser who also did a great job.
So did the Slovenian Stasa Gejo and the French Mélissa le Nevé (5t7). The latter did not seem too reluctant and realized a solid performance. « The result is satisfying for qualifications level. You need to complete problems one after the other. It wasn’t difficult this morning, all I needed was to be focused. » said Mélissa Le Nevé, who reached the 5th temporary rank.
No big surprises this morning, except for the French team. Fanny Gibert didn’t take a good start and failed to reach the top of her first boulder. Her hope to go to the final vanished, even if she completed successfully the next 3 problems. She finished at the 25th rank.
But let’s go back to good news. As we said before, Clémentine Kaiser and Mélissa Le Nevé managed to reach the semi-final, so did Marine Thévenet (4t7). Unfortunately, Charlotte Durif and Maëlys Agrapart only finished 35th and 59th ranks.
What’s next ? The semi-final on Saturday morning, in live streaming !
